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ADDRESS 

AT THE CELEBRATION OF 

THE TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FIFTH 

ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING 

OF CAMBRIDGE 

Sanders Theatre, Dec, 21, 1905 

BY 

ALEXANDER McKENZIE 



[Reprinted from Proceedings of The Cambridge 
Historical Society, I] 



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ADDRESS OF ALEXANDER McKENZIE 

On February 1, 1636, O. S., the First Church in Cambridge was 
formed. This was the eleventh church in Massachusetts. The 
first church under Hooker and Stone was about to remove to 
Connecticut, but a few of the members, including John Bridge, were 
to remain here. Thomas Shepard was called from England and 
reached Boston in the ship " Defence " in October, 1635, accom- 
panied by about sixty friends. They had not intended to make this 
their permanent home, but they found that this was expedient. 
They purchased the houses which were to be deserted, and the new 
church was organized, and Mr. Shepard was chosen to be its 
minister. That church has kept its place to this hour. The men 
who composed it were Englishmen, a fact which explains their 
action. They sought a greater liberty than was permitted in 
England, and a church which should be separate from the State and 
purer than the one which they had left. Others who agreed with 
them in principle preferred to seek the reformation of the Church 
in which they were born. These men took the bolder step which 
brought them hither. In Governor Winthrop's words, they saw 
" no place to flie into but the wildernesse." They wished to be 
joined in a church for their own edification, and that they might 
advance their purpose " to carry the Gospell into those parts of the 
world, to help on the cuminge of the fulnesse of the Gentiles." 
They were conservative with all the boldness of their enterprise. 
They asserted the right to do their own thinking, which is a per- 
manent Puritan trait, and they were prepared to maintain that right 
at any cost. But they recognized authority, and they turned to 
the Bible which in 1611 had been published in the authorized ver- 
sion, and there they sought the truth which they were to hold and 
to teach, and the form of organization which they should adopt. In 
matters of belief they were well settled. They had not broken 
from the National Church upon questions of faith. They had the 



36 THE CAMBEIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Dec. 

old creeds and did not find it necessary to add to their number. 
But tliey required every one wlio entered into fellowship with them 
to declare his own belief and to justify it in his experience. A 
book kept by Mr. Shepard containing fifty of these personal con- 
fessions is preserved, although by some unwarranted mischance it 
has passed out of the hands of the Church to which it belongs. 
They held the general theological belief of their time. The clearest 
statement of their faith and fellowship is embodied in the compact 
to which they agreed. I have not been able to find a separate form 
of words ; and I have assumed with good reason that they accepted 
the form which had a little before been adopted by the First Church 
in Boston. That form is still in use here and is both a creed and a 
covenant, and as it now stands is in these words : 

We who are now brought together and united into one Church, under 
the Lord Jesus Christ, our Head, in such sort as beeometh all those 
whom He hath redeemed and sanctified to Himself, do here solemnly 
and rehgiously, as in His most holy presence, promise and bind our- 
selves to walk in all our ways according to the rule of the Gospel, and 
in all sincere conformity to His holy ordinances, and in mutual love and 
respect each to other, so near as God shall give us grace. 

The fitness of this agreement for its purpose is manifest ; and the 
spirit of the men, in the humility of their courage, is revealed in the 
happy phrase which closes and seals their agreement, " so near as 
God shall give us grace." They adopted the only form of organ- 
ization and government which was practicable, and for this they 
believed they had full precedent and authority. Their method and 
action, beyond their thought, were a prophecy of the Republic 
which was to come. Soon after came the Westminster Confession, 
to which they agreed, and the Cambridge platform, which is still 
the basis of the Puritan Church. It is not accurate to call these 
founders Calvinists, although for the most part they assented to 
Calvin's teaching and felt his influence. But he had been dead 
more than twenty years, and in the year of his death Shakespeare 
and Galileo were born. Thought had not stood still in this interval. 
When the Plymouth people were about to leave Holland, Robinson 
warned them against entrenchment in the past. " Saith he, you see 
the Calvinists stick where he left them." He told his people to be 



1905.] ADDRESS OF ALEXANDER McKENZIE 37 

expectant of further light and to be ready to receive it. This was 
the temper of the Puritans who came here. They had no thought 
of abandoning the principles of their belief, but they sought to 
understand them more fully. There were many strong points in 
Calvinism and to these they adhered. They believed stoutly in 
the sovereignty of God and the sanctity of duty ; in His election 
and predestination, in which they believed they were embraced. 
They taught the divine mercy, while at times they suggested the 
limits of the illimitable. The robust virtues of the system were 
incarnate in them: an unconquerable will, daring, persistence; in 
their firmness they were stubborn. Calvinism which should have 
made fatalists made heroes, and, in Fronde's words, " set its face 
against illusion and mendacity." They had the rugged virtues 
which were adapted to a rugged climate and a hard soil. Men of 
less vigor would not have come, or coming would not have stayed. 
Art, which is often more truthful than biography, has presented the 
men in two representative statues of bronze : of a clergyman and a 
deacon. John Harvard sits over his open book while the snow falls 
on his uncovered head ; and John Bridge from the Common looks 
into the wintry wind wearing his summer suit. That is the kind 
of men they were, calmly defiant of the weather. It is this gener- 
ation, not their own, which has erected these monuments. 

They were rigid and needed to be ; intolerant of evil within their 
gates and of interference from without. They never pursued a 
man to his harm, but they insisted on the rights for which they 
had paid a great price. If others differed from them, and persisted 
in doing it, there was room enough along the coast and in the inte- 
rior for them to enjoy their diversity. Others might do as they 
pleased if they would allow them to do as they pleased on their 
own ground. Intolerance against interference was their habit. 
The method had this advantage, that it diffused liberty. Roger 
Williams would not have done the work of which Rhode Island 
boasts, if he had not been urged with some insistence, and against 
his will, to transfer himself and his desires to the vacant field where 
he could fulfil his purpose unhindered and unhindering. Providence 
dates from 1636. We are to-night commemorating the earliest days 
of the town and I must not come through later generations. There 
are things afterwards which we deeply regret, but these belonged in 
the times and to the world, — to " Old England " more than to 



38 THE CAMBRIDGE HISTOEICAL SOCIETY [Dec. 

New England. We can forgive mucli to men who wrought for the 
advantage of those who should come after them, whose work has 
lasted, into whose sacrifices and toils we have been glad to enter. 
The ruder side of their life and estate forces itself upon our notice. 
It was not all rude. Women were here, and children. There were 
pleasant homes and faithful friendships, and the days were not 
devoid of the things which brighten and lighten life. They kept 
Christmas in spirit, though fearing its companions. They read the 
carols, and I fancy that they sang them quietly. Their letters are 
rich in loving and tender thoughts. You do not greatly change 
men by bringing them across the sea. The heart will beat. 

Our founders were large-minded men. The leaders among them 
were well born. Many had been trained at Cambridge and Oxford. 
They had inherited a love of learning and confidence in its utility. 
I cannot do better than to recall the words of Mr. Lowell spoken 
from this platform : " That happy breed of men who both in Church 
and State led our first emigration were children of the most splen- 
did intellectual epoch that England has ever known." It is in 
witness to the men and their spirit that in the beginning they set up 
their College in the wilderness. The events recorded at the College 
gate are in their order and in the terms of their thought. After 
they had builded their houses, provided for their livelihood, reared 
convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil govern- 
ment : " one of the next things we longed for and looked after was 
to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity, dreading to 
leave an illiterate ministry to the Churches, when our present 
ministers shall lie in the dust." The Churches and the ministers 
led the way, and the College was founded, and endowed with a min- 
ister's money and a minister's name. It was placed here, rather than 
elsewhere, because this was " a place very pleasant and accommo- 
date," and "under the orthodox and soul flourishing ministry of 
Mr. Thomas Shepheard." Thenceforth the Church and its minister, 
with the neighboring Churches and ministers, made their College 
the object of their special care, giving out of their poverty for its 
support and out of their wealth for its guidance. In its turn the 
College helped the Churches even as it had been planned. No town 
has a finer beginning than this. The studies of the College were 
worthy of the scholars who ordered them. The circumference of 
their learning was as large as it is now, but there has been a vast 



1905.] ADDRESS OF ALEXANDER McKENZIE 39 

filling in as knowledge has grown from more to more. By this the 
Church profits as it expected to do. How close the connection has 
been is signified by the fact that even to-day the memorial slab of 
Henry Dunster the first President rests on the grave of Jonathan 
Mitchel, the second minister. I may speak of the College only in 
this alhance, and from the side of the old Church. Both Church 
and College have hved, which means that they have grown, and 
less in numbers than in life. The truths which were beheved have 
been illumined in the increased hght. They have drawn upon the 
hfe of the world. Facts have more meaning and force ; proportions 
have changed ; statements and definitions have been renewed. The 
College keeps the Church engraven on its seal and emblazoned in 
its windows. It was not intended, but when an inscription was 
sought for the wall over our heads nothing was found better than 
the words of the prophet which an earher generation had written 
above the grave of the graduate of 1712, who longer than any 
other had served the Church as its minister ; words which we read 
in the Vulgate as often as we come hither, " Qui autem docti, 
fuerint fulgebunt, ... in perpetuas seternitates." 

I must not attempt to trace the history of the Church far from 
its beginning. It has lived to do its part for the town which has 
dealt generously by it. The Church taught patriotism and devo- 
tion when the Colonies declared their independence. Among the 
histories of that time is one entitled " The Pulpit of the American 
Revolution," which recognizes the influence of the ministry. In 
our own day the Church has asserted Union and Liberty and has 
defended them that the Republic might be preserved. Samuel 
Adams was not the last of the Puritans. For fourteen thousand 
Sundays the Church has served the community and the country in 
its teaching, and over one hundred thousand days by its varied 
ministries. It has taught duty, virtue, piety, and has sought to 
breathe into the common life the spirit of truth and charity. Many 
churches have gathered around the first, where they stand in their 
strength, the largest society known among us, in the range of its 
purpose and effort. The latest are one with the earliest in the 
power of an endless life. 

I must not obscure the fact that after an unbroken fellowship of 
two hundred years the old church became two households. There 
is no contention save as both contend for truth and duty ; and both 



40 THE CAMBEIDGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY [Dec. 

stand for helpfulness and good will. There are two houses, but we 
keep Thanksgiving Day under one roof. 



LIBHAHY Uh UUNUHbSb 




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